Cognitive and Neural Bases of Social Belief Systems
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1
National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, United States
Moral, political, and religious beliefs have played a key role in the formation of civilized human behavior. Evidence for their importance emerged in early narratives, drawings, and written documents in which beliefs were the focus. While we share some aspects of these belief systems with great apes and other species, humans can be distinguished by the complexity and abstractness of these belief systems and there is general agreement that many features of these belief systems are mediated by cortical regions that have recently evolved in humans. In my presentation, I will describe recent research from my Section that has explored different strategies to identify brain areas that are recruited by moral, political and religious belief systems. I will focus my presentation on the role of the prefrontal cortex appears to play in different belief systems and how its role helps define its overall function in human behavior.
References
1. Kapogiannis et al. Proceedings of the National Academy of Science 2009, 106, 4876-4881
2. Zamboni et al. Social Neuroscience 2009, 4, 367-383.
3. Knutson et al. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience in press
Conference:
The 20th Annual Rotman Research Institute Conference, The frontal lobes, Toronto, Canada, 22 Mar - 26 Mar, 2010.
Presentation Type:
Oral Presentation
Topic:
Symposium 6: Neuropsychology
Citation:
Grafman
J
(2010). Cognitive and Neural Bases of Social Belief Systems.
Conference Abstract:
The 20th Annual Rotman Research Institute Conference, The frontal lobes.
doi: 10.3389/conf.fnins.2010.14.00020
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Received:
25 Jun 2010;
Published Online:
25 Jun 2010.
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Correspondence:
Jordan Grafman, National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, Bethesda, United States, jgrafman@northwestern.edu